OLOL parent company buys Amedisys building on Sherwood for $20 million

Advocate staff file photo -- Amedisys Inc. is selling its headquarters building on South Sherwood Forest Boulevard to the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System for $20 million.

The parent company of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center has bought home nursing giant Amedisys Inc.’s corporate headquarters building on South Sherwood Forest Boulevard for $20 million.

The Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System plans to consolidate administrative support departments there that are now spread across several leased properties.

Amedisys will move its corporate offices to 3854 American Way, Suite A, which is being renovated. The two companies will share office space for the next six months.

At more than 110,000 square feet, the Sherwood building can accommodate up to 600 staff members, allowing the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System to co-locate several support departments for greater efficiency and collaboration.

FMOLH Chief Executive Officer John Finan described the building as “an almost ideal fit.”

Relocating those support departments will also help reduce traffic around the main Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center campus off Essen Lane, he said.

The health system will spend the next six to 12 months figuring out which offices will move into the new building.

The Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, one of the largest health care systems in Louisiana, is a nonprofit Catholic organization sponsored by the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady. It serves patients statewide through a network of hospitals, clinics, physicians, elderly housing and integrated systems. In addition to OLOL in Baton Rouge, its four other hospitals are Our Lady of the Angels in Bogalusa, Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center in Lafayette, St. Elizabeth Hospital in Gonzales and St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe

Amedisys has been shopping the building since the summer. In September, spokeswoman Kendra Kimmons said the Sherwood building was larger than the company’s current needs. Amedisys was considering its options, including leasing space at the building or moving if the company could find offices that offered a better fit.

About 400 Amedisys staff members work at the offices on Sherwood, which at one time had housed more than 500. Amedisys recently moved 33 of its top executives to a satellite office in Nashville, Tennessee, a medical hub where it said it can recruit top administrators more easily. The company also slashed its information technology section, eliminating dozens of jobs after writing off a failed in-house-designed software system.

Amedisys bought the Sherwood building in February 2005 for $4.2 million. The building was vacant but had been a Schwegmann’s grocery store. Amedisys spent more than two years turning the grocery store into a modern office building. The work included adding skylights, multiple atriums and banks of windows along the front. By the time the corporate headquarters opened in April 2007, Amedisys had poured more than $23 million into its Sherwood offices.

In July, Amedisys CEO Paul Kusserow said Baton Rouge would remain the headquarters for the home health care company and for general financial functions.